Unnamed Footage Festival: ‘Nightfall: A Paranormal Investigation’ commits the worst crime of all — being boring

A traditionally shot film with found-footage elements is a tough sell. In Myles McEwen and Ripley Stevens’ co-directed piece, Nightfall: A Paranormal Investigation, both approaches come colliding together into a dull journey into the macabre. The torch is barely lit when the film jumps off the ground, pushing the audience to check their watches and pray to be anywhere else. While McEwen and Stevens pepper in excellent audio tracks and flashes of disturbing images throughout the runtime, you beg to see more of it as the film rushes to a mediocre, full-of-promise finale.

Mick (McEwen) and Archie (Stevens) do exemplary work as the two lead investigators. Their unwavering performances keep the picture grounded and endear to the audience, making you care about their welfare. A medium by trade, Archie can detect negative energies and even communicate with evil presences. His ability stands in contrast to Mick, who relies totally on electronic equipment and his own instincts on whether a location is tormented. Throughout the story, various cases are explored, with the film teasing that Case 13 is the most frightening, life-changing of their still-young careers. They’ve been mounting examinations of homes, buildings, barns, and the like for less than three years. Their naivety serves them well as the cases grow scarier and more intense.

The film opens with an elderly version of Mick and Archie, years after Case 13 rattled them to the core. The entity they encountered has been lying in wait, for the moment to strike and suck their life forces from their bodies. As they search a parking garage, allegedly haunted, the Case 13 being lifts Archie high into the air before snapping Mick’s neck. It’s a gruesome scene, setting the tone for the film. Rewind nearly 40 years, and we see a very young Mick and Archie at the beginning of their career. Casting is top-notch, as we believe the younger and older versions could be the same people. Still green behind the ears, the two collaborators take on more than they can chew through various spooky occurrences.

What transpires throughout the film feels pedestrian to most films of its ilk. It’s as though the story has been filtered through Sinister but carries none of the chills and thrills to make it worth your time. While visually stunning (there’s one shot where Mick and Archie stand in golden light that is chef’s kiss, for example), Nightfall doesn’t generate any of the intrigue it claims to possess. Rather, it’s a lifeless exercise that finds McEwen and Stevens, as actors, going through the motions and not exactly provoking the sort of fear that would otherwise be extracted from similar footage.

Case 13 includes brief moments of animalistic terror, as we see a male body writhing on the floor, but these fleeting moments crumble like cracked pillars. There are knocks, door slams, auditory delusions, and other monotonous cues that have been done to death. Sometimes, those devices elicit throat-choking panic in the audience, their heart throbbing in their chest. Yet here, there hasn’t been any proper build-up with the straight found-footage razor-edge to warrant a proper pay-off. It limps – no – it drags into what is supposed to be a monstrous climax. It just doesn’t reach any heights.

On paper, Nightfall: A Paranormal Investigation could work (the camera work McEwen and Stevens display is fantastic in the traditional footage) and promises to be one of the most alluringly scary pieces out of this year’s Unnamed Footage Festival. But its execution is most certainly none of these things. It’s okay to be bad (as long as you make bold choices), but the biggest crime a film can commit is to be boring – and this is a dud.